3 ms·

Glicol: Next-generation computer music language

143 points by Bluestein 2y ago

atech4826 2y ago
Hello, and thank you for creating Glicol—it’s an outstanding tool for live coding and audio synthesis! I was wondering about the possibility of extending Glicol’s functionality to include features such as: TTS Emotional Replication Generating human-like emotional expressions in sound (e.g., sighs, coughs, gasps). Sound Effects Simulation Creating realistic environmental sounds, such as thunder, rain, wind, and other ambient effects. Novel Sound Creation Enabling the generation of entirely new and experimental sounds, potentially by training on a provided audio dataset. Given Glicol’s modular architecture, Rust-based engine, and WebAssembly (WASM) support, I’m curious whether it would be theoretically possible to support such extensions within the current framework. Questions Are any of these features currently possible with Glicol? If not, are there any plans or ongoing developments to enable functionality like this in the future? I believe these additions could expand Glicol’s applications far beyond music generation, opening up exciting possibilities in areas like: TTS systems with nuanced emotional expression. Sound design for games, films, and interactive media. Experimental audio research and creative sound exploration. Before concluding, I’d like to add that Glicol’s potential use cases could extend well beyond music generation, offering new opportunities for innovation in audio-based applications. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and whether these ideas align with Glicol’s future vision. Thank you for your time and for developing such an inspiring platform!
- Bluestein 2y ago
  > TTS Emotional Replication What a tought.- Velocity-driven audience coughs :) PS. In jest. I do not mean to subtract from your substantive and interesting comment.- In my ignorance, this puts me in mind of p5 and the like.-
- chaosprint 2y ago
  To be honest, I am not an expert in TTS. However, the angle you mentioned does have many application prospects, but I feel that the project itself may be larger than Glicol :), and it may be provided as an independent rust package. The short-term goal of Glicol is to cooperate with other instruments and LLM.
dang 2y ago
Related: Glicol: Next-generation computer music language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37360720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37360720 - Sept 2023 (2 comments) Show HN: Glicol - A Graph-Oriented Live Coding Language/DSP Lib Written in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942074 - April 2022 (29 comments) Show HN: Glicol: Music/DSP live coding language 'n audio library written in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811015 - March 2022 (1 comment) Glicol – Next-generation computer music language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30746299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30746299 - March 2022 (1 comment)
chaosprint 2y ago
Author here, happy to answer any questions. I am building a SaaS startup in stealth mode (probably will apply YC)—finding it challenging to balance time between the startup and open-source projects. Ironically, it felt easier at my previous job as employee in a startup: work during office hours, open-source on the side. Now I spend my free time playing my Fender and exploring ways to combine music with programming, maybe using LLMs for copilot performances.
- transformi 2y ago
  This is very cool. Unfortunately it's quite hard to use ChatGPT to generate new music, since i don't see good docs that it can use. It will be helpful to create a nice doc as prompt to use it to force LLMs to create custom music.
  - jives 2y ago
    ChatGPT has at least been trained on a variety of textual musical notations. It will generate chord charts or drum patterns. In the past I've asked it to generate chord progressions demonstrating various music theory concepts.
    - Bluestein 2y ago
      It would be cool - 'haps - to use one of the many music/accompaniment algorithms available, adding "nuisance" or "humanness" through AI, creating a virtual musician.-
- brookst 2y ago
  I'm having a blast playing with Glicol. Thanks for posting it. Any aspirations to add more song-level concepts like arrangement, chord progression, and/or semantic meaning? Right now it excels at creating short loops but I'm not seeing a good way to get a sense of movement and purpose (short of hand-coding everything)
  - chaosprint 2y ago
kanbankaren 2y ago
How does this compare with csound?
- chaosprint 2y ago
  Csound is legend. You can find almost all the sound effects in csound, and the score of csound is an exclusive feature. Compared with Csound, Glicol has a completely different logic in syntax, which is much more lightweight and focused on sound synthesis and live coding. The core logic of Glicol can actually use "organized numbers" to make music. Numbers are used between nodes, and you can even "listen" to an envelope. Controlling these nodes is like having countless sound modules. The original idea of Glicol was that after I became familiar with DAW and modular synthesizers, I wanted to design a language that could simulate this workflow.
throwaway89201 2y ago
Strudel [1] is similar (no affiliation), inspired by Glicol, is a bit more approachable in terms of syntax, has a great visualization in the editor (highlighting the sounds being played) and has a nice tutorial [2]. [1] https://strudel.cc https://strudel.cc [2] https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/ https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/
- ddrdrck_ 2y ago
  Afaik Strudel is a Tidal javascript port, so not inspired by Glicol since I think Tidal was available way before ? Both are awesome anyway.
notcrazylol 2y ago
Neat! I was wondering if it is possible to build something on top of this - like a synth sequencer? Or build a synth plugin as such?
- chaosprint 2y ago
  yes see https://github.com/chaosprint/dattorro-vst-rs https://github.com/chaosprint/dattorro-vst-rs also this one https://youtu.be/tmmBhBmIEW0?si=sRPDPsocDFfVNDyE https://youtu.be/tmmBhBmIEW0?si=sRPDPsocDFfVNDyE
  - notcrazylol 2y ago
    niceee! gonna try out it as soon as possible :)
xyproto 2y ago
Cool project! Note that ~ is a hassle to type in on many international keyboard layouts.

143 points by Bluestein 2y ago

Hello, and thank you for creating Glicol—it’s an outstanding tool for live coding and audio synthesis! I was wondering about the possibility of extending Glicol’s functionality to include features such as: TTS Emotional Replication Generating human-like emotional expressions in sound (e.g., sighs, coughs, gasps). Sound Effects Simulation Creating realistic environmental sounds, such as thunder, rain, wind, and other ambient effects. Novel Sound Creation Enabling the generation of entirely new and experimental sounds, potentially by training on a provided audio dataset. Given Glicol’s modular architecture, Rust-based engine, and WebAssembly (WASM) support, I’m curious whether it would be theoretically possible to support such extensions within the current framework. Questions Are any of these features currently possible with Glicol? If not, are there any plans or ongoing developments to enable functionality like this in the future? I believe these additions could expand Glicol’s applications far beyond music generation, opening up exciting possibilities in areas like: TTS systems with nuanced emotional expression. Sound design for games, films, and interactive media. Experimental audio research and creative sound exploration. Before concluding, I’d like to add that Glicol’s potential use cases could extend well beyond music generation, offering new opportunities for innovation in audio-based applications. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and whether these ideas align with Glicol’s future vision. Thank you for your time and for developing such an inspiring platform!

Bluestein 2y ago
> TTS Emotional Replication What a tought.- Velocity-driven audience coughs :) PS. In jest. I do not mean to subtract from your substantive and interesting comment.- In my ignorance, this puts me in mind of p5 and the like.-
chaosprint 2y ago
To be honest, I am not an expert in TTS. However, the angle you mentioned does have many application prospects, but I feel that the project itself may be larger than Glicol :), and it may be provided as an independent rust package. The short-term goal of Glicol is to cooperate with other instruments and LLM.

dang 2y ago

Related: Glicol: Next-generation computer music language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37360720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37360720 - Sept 2023 (2 comments) Show HN: Glicol - A Graph-Oriented Live Coding Language/DSP Lib Written in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942074 - April 2022 (29 comments) Show HN: Glicol: Music/DSP live coding language 'n audio library written in Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811015 - March 2022 (1 comment) Glicol – Next-generation computer music language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30746299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30746299 - March 2022 (1 comment)

chaosprint 2y ago

Author here, happy to answer any questions. I am building a SaaS startup in stealth mode (probably will apply YC)—finding it challenging to balance time between the startup and open-source projects. Ironically, it felt easier at my previous job as employee in a startup: work during office hours, open-source on the side. Now I spend my free time playing my Fender and exploring ways to combine music with programming, maybe using LLMs for copilot performances.

transformi 2y ago
This is very cool. Unfortunately it's quite hard to use ChatGPT to generate new music, since i don't see good docs that it can use. It will be helpful to create a nice doc as prompt to use it to force LLMs to create custom music.
- jives 2y ago
  ChatGPT has at least been trained on a variety of textual musical notations. It will generate chord charts or drum patterns. In the past I've asked it to generate chord progressions demonstrating various music theory concepts.
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    It would be cool - 'haps - to use one of the many music/accompaniment algorithms available, adding "nuisance" or "humanness" through AI, creating a virtual musician.-
brookst 2y ago
I'm having a blast playing with Glicol. Thanks for posting it. Any aspirations to add more song-level concepts like arrangement, chord progression, and/or semantic meaning? Right now it excels at creating short loops but I'm not seeing a good way to get a sense of movement and purpose (short of hand-coding everything)
- chaosprint 2y ago

kanbankaren 2y ago

How does this compare with csound?

chaosprint 2y ago
Csound is legend. You can find almost all the sound effects in csound, and the score of csound is an exclusive feature. Compared with Csound, Glicol has a completely different logic in syntax, which is much more lightweight and focused on sound synthesis and live coding. The core logic of Glicol can actually use "organized numbers" to make music. Numbers are used between nodes, and you can even "listen" to an envelope. Controlling these nodes is like having countless sound modules. The original idea of Glicol was that after I became familiar with DAW and modular synthesizers, I wanted to design a language that could simulate this workflow.

throwaway89201 2y ago

Strudel [1] is similar (no affiliation), inspired by Glicol, is a bit more approachable in terms of syntax, has a great visualization in the editor (highlighting the sounds being played) and has a nice tutorial [2]. [1] https://strudel.cc https://strudel.cc [2] https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/ https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/

ddrdrck_ 2y ago
Afaik Strudel is a Tidal javascript port, so not inspired by Glicol since I think Tidal was available way before ? Both are awesome anyway.

notcrazylol 2y ago

Neat! I was wondering if it is possible to build something on top of this - like a synth sequencer? Or build a synth plugin as such?

chaosprint 2y ago
yes see https://github.com/chaosprint/dattorro-vst-rs https://github.com/chaosprint/dattorro-vst-rs also this one https://youtu.be/tmmBhBmIEW0?si=sRPDPsocDFfVNDyE https://youtu.be/tmmBhBmIEW0?si=sRPDPsocDFfVNDyE
- notcrazylol 2y ago
  niceee! gonna try out it as soon as possible :)

xyproto 2y ago

Cool project! Note that ~ is a hassle to type in on many international keyboard layouts.